


Once Upon a Time

by VanillaMostly



Series: hidden and unseen [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-War, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Narcissa pays her sister a visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time

Her sister in her mourning dress robes still looked as slim as she did at twenty. Narcissa reached up to smooth her hair, ridiculously (stupidly) wondering if the grey strands in her blond showed.

"Andromeda," said Narcissa.

(Once, I called her 'Meddie.')

Andromeda turned. Her eyes widened slightly but her face quickly smoothed into a porcelain, unreadable mask.

She had not forgotten all ways of the Blacks, clearly.

The gaggle of low-class riffraff whose company Andromeda kept - well, not so low anymore, Narcissa noted bitterly (the world had flipped upside down and it would take her time to get used to it) - shot Narcissa suspicious looks, some even reaching for their wands. Narcissa paid them no attention. She was not here for them.

Finally, one or two of them (Narcissa glimpsed the glasses and unkempt dark hair, and she determinedly stared forward, posture straight) had the tact to pull the rest away. Then it was just Narcissa and Andromeda, standing awkwardly far apart, but not far enough for each of their own comfort.

Narcissa had planned out what to say and how to say every phrase before arriving, but now, to her great annoyance, she could not think of how to begin.

Andromeda gave her a long look, her brown eyes half-visible beneath the brim of her hat. Narcissa willed herself to return the gaze, chin raised. _Confidence_ , Mother always said, _dictates a lady's worth_.

(Did Andromeda remember that?)

"So you came," said Andromeda, looking away.

Narcissa listened for resentment in her tone; anger, perhaps. But all she heard was weariness, an age-old weariness that softened her sister's shoulders, curling her inward.

Narcissa took a small step forward. Andromeda did not step back. Narcissa would have to take that as a good sign.

"I'm sorry," said Narcissa softly. She did mean it.

Once upon a time she would not have been sorry at all at the death of a werewolf, a Hufflepuff, or a Mud- Muggle-born. Good riddance, she would have thought; they brought this on themselves.

But today she was not grieving their deaths. She had not known them, they meant nothing to her. She was only grieving over the fate that life had dealt her sister. A fate for which Narcissa was - she would not deny it, not anymore - responsible, for the past twenty years. A fate, she knew, would have driven her over the edge, broken her inside and out, had it happened to her.

Narcissa took another small step forward. Now, her arm was almost touching Andromeda's.

She could take Andromeda's hand if she wanted to. She could put an arm around her sister's waist and lean her head against the crook of her second sister's neck, like they used to, once upon a time.

But Narcissa did not.

(One day, maybe she could.)

Narcissa only stayed with Andromeda before the tombstones, offering her silence and her presence as truce.

For now, that would have to do.


End file.
